Competition law and state-owned enterprises

Like private firms, State-owned enterprises (SOEs) might seek to maximise profit, even if they ultimately re-invest the surplus that they earn. Alternatively, their objective might be to expand their output, or they may have another goal. Regardless of their objectives, there remains a risk that their actions, agreements and mergers may sometimes harm consumers, causing competition agencies to sometimes investigate their behaviour. However, in undertaking such investigations there will be particular challenges, some relating to the status of these organisations, some to their different objectives which may affect the analytical tools that an agency uses.

In November 2018, the OECD Global Forum on Competition held a roundtable discussion to look at investigations into anticompetitive conduct mergers, and agreements by SOEs, both those owned or controlled by a competition authority’s own government, and those owned or controlled by other governments. In particular, it will examine the type of conduct that they have engaged in, the rationale for doing so, the key analytical questions that arose in these cases, and the way in which their status and objectives affected those investigations. In doing so, we aim to draw out the main challenges of enforcing competition law against SOEs and look for ways to address them.